TO AUTUMN
John Keats
- What are the different images used by the poet in the poem ‘Ode to Autumn’?
-
INTRODUCTION
“To Autumn” is a poem by the English Romantic poet John Keats (October 31, 1795 – February 23, 1821). He wrote it on September 19, 1819, and it was published in a collection of his poems, which also included “Lamia” and “The Eve of St. Agnes,” in 1820. ‘To autumn’ is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats’s “1819 Odes”. Despite having limited time for poetry in 1819 due to personal issues, Keats managed to compose “To Autumn” after being inspired by an autumn evening walk near Winchester. Keats ‘To Autumn’ after enjoying a lovely autumn day, he described his experience in a letter to his friend Reynolds: How beautiful the season is now-…I never liked stubble fields so much as now – – Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow a stubble plain looks warm- in the same way that some pictures look warm- this struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it”
The poem signifies the end of Keats’s poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer pursue the poet’s lifestyle. After the publication of the Poem To Autumn, Keats died in Rome. The poem has three stanzas, each of eleven lines, which describe the tastes, sights and sounds of autumn. This ode is a favorite among critics and poetry lovers alike. Harold Bloom calls it “ one of the subtlest ( delicate) and most beautiful of all Keats’s Odes, and as close to perfect as any shorter poem in the English language”. Keats depicts autumn through a series of specific, concrete, and vivid visual images. The stanza begins with autumn, at the peak of fulfillment ( success).
-
EXPLANATION
In the first stanza, the speaker dramatizes an overall description of autumn and what happens during that time of year. Keats’ speaker opens his first stanza by addressing Autumn. The season of autumn conspires with the sun to produce the juicy grapes and other fruits that will soon be harvested. Autumn labors with the sun to cause the tree to “bend with apples,” and to “fill the fruits with ripeness to the core” and “to swell the gourd (a hard skinned fleshy fruit) and plump the hazel (small tree of the birch family with edible brown nuts) shells.” It encourages the flowering of plants for the bees. The bees think that warm days will never cease ( end,finish,stop).
In the second stanza, the speaker shifts his focus from a description to a direct address of the season. He speaks To Autumn as if it were a person. In the second stanza, Autumn is personified as a reaper or a harvester. The speaker describes the figure of autumn as a female goddess. Autumn is now portrayed as a woman with “soft hair” blown by the wind. She is often seen sitting on the granary floor. This personified autumn may also be found in the fields drowsing (snoozing, napping )with the fume (smoke) of poppies. Other times these Orton may be found by a cider-press watching the sweet cider being pressed by the apples that had bent down the trees. She is shown crossing a brook. However,some work remains, the furrow (channel )is half-ripped.
In the third stanza, the speaker shifts his focus once more; he still personifies autumn but now draws a single comparison between autumn and spring. He asks the question, “Where are the songs of spring?” He then repeats the question, “Ay, where are they?” The repetition makes the reader feel that the speaker is lamenting the loss of the song of spring, but then he reproves the personified autumn not to be concerned about those songs, because Autumn has its own music. He says: “Think not of them, thou hast music too.” The day, like the season, is dying. The end of the day is depicted positively as “soft-dying.” This dying also creates beauty; the setting sun casts a “bloom” of “rosy hue” over the dried stubble or stalks left after the harvest.
Then he offers a catalogue of sounds that fill the ripe season of Autumn. As a backdrop for the autumn sounds, the speaker paints this image. The third stanza describes various sounds of the season. At twilight ,the small insects hum( buzz) above the shallows of the river full grown lambs bleat from the hills, crickets sing,robins whistle from the garden and swallows on their returning gather and sing from the skies. Keats blends living and dying, the pleasant and unpleasant, because they are inextricably one,he accepts the reality of the mixed nature of the world.
-
STRUCTURE OF THE POEM
“To Autumn” is composed of three stanzas with a flexible rhyme scheme. Each stanza is 11 lines long. In terms of rhyme scheme, each stanza is divided roughly into two parts. In each stanza, the first part is made up of the first four lines of the stanza and the second part is made up of the last 7 lines. The first part of each stanza follows in ABAB rhyme scheme, the first line rhyming with the third and the second line rhyming with the fourth. The second part of each stanza is longer and features a varied rhyme scheme: the first stanza follows CDEDCCE, while the second and third stanzas follow CDECDDE.
In both its form and descriptive surface. “To Autumn” is one of the simplest of Keats’ odes. There is nothing confusing or complex in Keats’ poem. The remarkable accomplishment of this poem lies in its capacity to imply, explore, and expand upon a wealth of themes while maintaining its serene, gentle, and beautiful portrayal of autumn. “To Autumn” is concerned with quieter activities of daily observation and appreciation. “To Autumn” takes up where the other odes leave off . Like the others it shows Keats’ speaker paying homage to a particular goddess– in this case, the deified season of Autumn.
To sum up, John Keats’ “Ode To Autumn” celebrates the special qualities of beauty and melancholy of the fall season. “To Autumn” includes an emphasis on images of motion,growth and maturation. Critics have hailed “To Autumn” as one of the finest short poems in English literature, making it one of the most frequently anthologized English lyric poems.